Most customers, by the time the musicians reach the second set, are to some extent inebriated. They don't care what you play anyway.

I've got a feeling that if it's so easy for you - the struggle and the initiative are not as strong as they are for a person who has to struggle and therefore has more to say.

Making the simple complicated is commonplace.

Thelonius Monk went over to Bird and Bud Powell and said, 'I told you guys to act crazy, but I didn't tell you to fall in love with the act. You're really crazy now.'

Whatever coast he's on, a man should be himself. I don't write in any particular idiom, I write Charles Mingus.

I'm trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason it's difficult is because I'm changing all the time.

In my music, I'm trying to play the truth of what I am.